Hornets pound Mavs to take 2-0 lead

With each passing playoff game, the ritual chants of "MVP!" grow louder.

Never mind that the MVP votes are already in. Fans at the New Orleans Arena serenaded Hornets point guard Chris Paul with the chant all night Tuesday, as he dominated the Dallas Mavericks for the second time in four days and gave the Hornets a 2-0 lead in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs.

The Hornets beat the Mavericks 127-103 before a sellout crowd of 17,855, and Paul continued a debut playoff series of historic proportions. He finished Tuesday's game with 32 points and a franchise playoff-record 17 assists, as well as five rebounds and three steals.

"Early on, everything we tried on Paul didn't work," Mavericks Coach Avery Johnson said. "We wanted to come out and get the ball out of his hands. We tried that. He split us a couple of times, got away from us. And then the main thing is their other guys stepped up big for them tonight."

After Paul finished Game 1 of the series as the first player in NBA history to amass 35 points and 10 assists in his playoff debut, the Mavericks were determined to trap Paul and force the ball away from him in Game 2.

But that strategy only seemed to get him more assists and leave forward David West open for jumpers. West finished with 27 points, five assists and four rebounds.

"One thing that I've learned watching a lot of these games and playing throughout the season is that you have to be aggressive," Paul said. "If I just sit back and let them trap me, then they succeeded in what they wanted to do."

The Hornets will travel to Dallas this week for Friday's Game 3 and Sunday's Game 4. The Hornets have beaten the Mavericks four times this season, all at home, but no Hornets team has won in Dallas since 1998.

The Mavericks have lost eight straight road playoff games, and Johnson said after Tuesday's game that he would have a different team in Dallas.

The Mavericks are looking to avoid a defeat in the first round of the playoffs for the second consecutive season. Dallas entered last season's first round as the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference and a heavy favorite against the Golden State Warriors, and while the Mavericks are playing this season as the No. 7 seed against the No. 2-seed Hornets, many analysts picked Dallas and its experienced roster to win.

Four years after the Hornets last appeared in the NBA playoffs, the team has dismissed the notion that postseason experience matters. And doubts have to be creeping into the minds of those analysts that picked Dallas.

While Paul and West were worries for the Mavericks on Tuesday, the rest of the Hornets were hitting their open and contested shots. New Orleans finished the game shooting 60.8 percent, including 10-of-18 from 3-point range.

Asked if there is a way to stop his offense during a performance like Tuesday's, Hornets Coach Byron Scott said: "I don't know. You can put an extra defender out there, I guess, but I don't know if they're going to allow that."

The Hornets set a franchise record for most points in the first quarter of a playoff game, outscoring the Mavericks 39-29. Paul capped the Hornets' first-period run with a buzzer-beating running jumper, and he found a way to outdo the Mavericks' coverage by getting the ball to West.

Paul finished the first quarter with eight assists and West had 12 points as the Hornets shot 70.8 percent.

"The way CP was able to navigate his way through the defense and then find open guys, and Peja and Mo and David and all those guys were making shots, it makes it tough," Scott said.

By halftime, Paul already had a double-double with 12 points and 10 assists, while West led his team in scoring with 18 points. The Hornets also set the franchise playoff record for most points in the first half and led 67-51 at halftime.

New Orleans made it look even easier from there, finishing the third quarter with 99 points and up 20.

Hornets center Tyson Chandler had to leave the game with 6:05 remaining in the third period, after he picked up his fifth foul, and that left Mavericks forward Brandon Brass to score 13 points that quarter.

But the Mavericks trailed by as many 28 points, while the Hornets set franchise playoff records for points in a game and 3-pointers made. Now Dallas will need four wins in five games -- including at least one in New Orleans -- to move on to the second round.

"I still think we have what it takes to win this series," said Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki, who led his team with 27 points. "So I'm not going to throw everything out the window now."